Thermal expansion coefficient measurement from electron diffraction of amorphous films in a TEM

Misa Hayashida; Kai Cui; Marek Malac; Ray Egerton

doi:10.1016/j.ultramic.2018.02.003

Thermal expansion coefficient measurement from electron diffraction of amorphous films in a TEM

Ultramicroscopy. 2018 May:188:8-12. doi: 10.1016/j.ultramic.2018.02.003. Epub 2018 Feb 16.

Authors

Misa Hayashida¹, Kai Cui², Marek Malac³, Ray Egerton⁴

Affiliations

¹ Nanotechnology Research Center, 11421 Saskatchewan Drive, Edmonton T6G 2M9, Canada. Electronic address: [email protected].
² Nanotechnology Research Center, 11421 Saskatchewan Drive, Edmonton T6G 2M9, Canada.
³ Nanotechnology Research Center, 11421 Saskatchewan Drive, Edmonton T6G 2M9, Canada; Department of Physics, University of Alberta, Edmonton T6G 2E1, Canada.
⁴ Department of Physics, University of Alberta, Edmonton T6G 2E1, Canada.

PMID: 29499457
DOI: 10.1016/j.ultramic.2018.02.003

Abstract

We measured the linear thermal expansion coefficients of amorphous 5-30 nm thick SiN and 17 nm thick Formvar/Carbon (F/C) films using electron diffraction in a transmission electron microscope. Positive thermal expansion coefficient (TEC) was observed in SiN but negative coefficients in the F/C films. In case of amorphous carbon (aC) films, we could not measure TEC because the diffraction radii required several hours to stabilize at a fixed temperature.